


wrap me up, unfold me

by lizimajig



Category: Shameless (US)
Genre: Bipolar Disorder, Depression, Gen, M/M, POV Second Person, Suicidal Thoughts
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-04-29
Updated: 2014-04-29
Packaged: 2018-01-21 05:39:55
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,517
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1539668
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/lizimajig/pseuds/lizimajig
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p><i>Warm me up / And breathe me</i>.</p>
<p>Five interactions.</p>
            </blockquote>





	wrap me up, unfold me

**Author's Note:**

> Spoilers for 4x12. Trigger warnings for suicidal ideation and the general shittiness that comes with the downward depression spiral. All standard disclaimers apply.

**i. Mandy**  
The front door slams behind Mickey, and you simply exist in the silence. You should have taken him up on the offer, even if you're not really hungry -- but you're not really anything right now. You're just kind of there, occupying space while thoughts of all kinds and no kind swirl in your brain like bathwater circling the drain.

There's a soft knock at the door. "Hey, Ian?" It's Mandy. "Can I come in?"

You don't answer; you don't not want her there but neither do you care if she does, so you don't say anything at all. She takes it as permission, anyway, and lays back on the bed where her brother had previously laid. "Didn't think Mickey was going to be the clingy type, didja?" she asks jokingly.

_He wants me. I don't deserve it but he does and if that's clingy..._ You don't finish the thought, because what's the fucking point. 

"I mean... he's right, it's noon," she says, like she expects a response. "Do you feel sick? We've got some Sprite, or I can get you some aspirin. Well, they're in a bottle that says 'aspirin', anyway -- " She picks up the corner of the blanket and you snatch it back, pulling it over your head. There's just enough time for you to glimpse the naked shock on her face as you do so. 

Then the guilt hits you, and you feel like an even bigger piece of shit. "Just go away," you plead.

She's silent, but remains a moment longer. "I work overnight tonight," she tells you quietly, "and I'm going to be here all day, you need something, you fucking holler for me, okay?" It's a rhetorical question and you take it as such. She leaves you in bed, and you curl up even tighter.

\---

**ii. Debbie and Carl**  
"Ian?" Nothing. "Ian, you all right?" Still nothing, just the persistent, annoying beat of your heart and the buzz of anxiety in the air. "Ian, it's Debbie."

"Go away," is all you can manage. Fuck. You know yelling at Mickey was a shitty thing to do, all Mickey wants to do is help and for you to be yourself again -- and you wants that too, but you doesn't remember how. That's somebody else who's fucked off and who the hell knows if he'll ever be back again. 

But he didn't have to bring the fucking kids into this.

"You know what this is?"

"Yeah. We know what this is."

You hear the carefully contained heartbreak in her voice, and you squeeze your eyes shut before tears can escape. _Fuck, no, go away, Debbie and Carl are just kids._ They were only babies when they were putting up with this shit from Monica. None of them should have had to deal with her, and they shouldn't have to with you. 

The bed creaks under the weight of one, then two more bodies. Debbie is curled up at your back, and puts a gentle arm around you, more lovingly than you deserve, and it must be Carl sitting at your feet. You both love and hate having them so near. "Ian, please get up," Debbie begs. "It's okay to be depressed but they said you haven't been up all day."

You are such a shit for brains. But you don't move.

"We got pizza at home," Carl says, clearly hopeful those will be the magic words that bring you back to life, but it literally does nothing for you. "Come have pizza."

In some other universe, that does the trick. There, you reach over the side of the bed for your jeans and go back home with the kids to eat until all that's left is a greasy cardboard box on the coffee table. Maybe Mickey comes along and when Debbie, Carl, and Liam are in bed you two watch some shitty movie on cable and/or fuck around on the couch until you fall asleep with one another. Just like that, you can be happy again. 

But that universe is not this one. "Please go," you say, and your voice sounds horrible on your ears, thin and fragile, like used tissue paper. 

A beat passes, and Carl leaves without a word. Debbie remains a moment longer, her arm still around you and you want her to stop and to never let go all at the same time. She's too young to be so wise, to know what kind of dark pit you've sunk into, and that she can't pull you back out again, and how that is not their fault (even though it feels like yours). 

She leans over you, her hair falling down and brushing your chest as she kisses your cheek. "We'll get help, Ian," she whispers, the way Fiona always told them, "we'll find money to pay the electric," or, "I'll make us dinner tonight," when there was nothing but a box of mac and cheese and a few hot dogs in the house; the steely determination of someone who doesn't know where the means will come from but is all the same unflinchingly determined that it _will_ happen.

What she doesn't know yet is that there is no help for this. Only the cycle, and the anticipation of the exultant rise and plummeting fall.

\---

**iii. Fiona**  
 _How the fuck is Fiona even here_ is the closest thing to any kind of emotion besides dread, guilt, or indifference (if you can call those emotions) you've had in twenty-hour plus hours. She lays across the bed, resting herself on your hip as she rubs your back gently. The touch is so tender you can't bear it; you'd rather be hit with blunt instruments, or shot or stabbed with any of the numerous weapons stashed around the Milkovich house than have your sister try and soothe you. You move only enough to press your face into the pillow, because if you have to think about this one more second you will cry, and you will never, ever stop.

"I love you so much, Ian," she starts, and your heart hammers against your ribcage. Shame is what bears down on you now. Because you know Fiona recognizes this for what it is, just as you did. _I'm sorry, Fi, I tried to stop it but I couldn't. I wasn't strong enough._ She's already done this once, with Monica, while he and Lip (shit, Lip) waited outside the cracked door, barely breathing and straining to hear if Monica was going to answer. And now she's plying the tricks of the trade on you.

"I'm sorry I wasn't here sooner," she continues, many moments later, as though no time passed between that and her greeting, "and that I've been... fucking clueless. So far into my own shit I didn't see anyone else's. I couldn't see anyone else's."

_This isn't your fault, Fiona, it's mine, I'm sorry._ Rationally, you know that it's not, it's a bad pick in the genetic lottery and any other number of random factors, that's all, but your rational mind is not at the helm. Hasn't she put up with enough shit? Haven't they all?

"I've been stuck inside a lot too," she says. "I could go get my shoes from the house, and we could go for a run down at the track." You almost want to. Running as fast and as hard as you can until your muscles scream and your lungs burn for air is a special kind of oblivion. "What do you say?"

You don't say anything.

Fiona leaves you with a squeeze and a pat. You know she'll be back because she always is, but you wish they'd stop trying. Just leave you to die quietly in that bedroom.

You can hear Mickey yelling on the other side of that door, but the words don't really register with you. It's just them talking about you like you're not here, and to be honest, you're not.

\---

**iv. Lip**  
It's almost dark when Lip shows up at the house, smelling like cigarette smoke and some unidentifiable girly scent, but second hand, like something that's started to rub off from his girlfriend, at least, you assume so. If it were otherwise you'd have to bestir himself to give your older brother shit.

"I've been filled in, don't get up," he says, not without irony, lounging on the empty side of the bed. And there the conversation stops. You're grateful for that, even if it's just because he doesn't know what to say. Lip doesn't know what gets said in the room any more than you do. The two of you know what is said outside, to one another, to the younger kids, to the neighbor who hasn't seen your mom in a bit, is she okay? Lip knows those answers. Here is a fucking mystery.

"Look, uh..." Sounds like he is going to try anyway. "Fiona's out and she landed a job, too. I passed so I'm not kicked out of school yet. I think Debbie's trying to fuck the pizza guy and Carl got his heart broken by his first girlfriend. I guess it's nice to know he has one. We're going to go to the empty lot and set things on fire, soon as I get a weekend."

_God why won't you shut up, shut the fuck up._ It's both annoying and a comforting sort of background chatter. Lip doesn't expect you to answer, but also he's talking.

"You could come too, 'course. Blow off some steam. Once you build up some steam to blow off." He's lit a cigarette; you can smell it, making your mouth water. You haven't had anything in two days -- no food, no smokes, nothing, and you didn't feel it until that moment. 

"I should have said something," he says, after a pause, his voice lower now, the tone that is reserved for painful truth. "I thought -- after the thing with the helicopter, I was like, _not Ian_ , that's not my brother." 

_It was me, it was all me._ You don't know why you did it either, only that it seemed like the logical thing to do at the time. And then you panicked and ran. It's been fucked up ever since.

"Listen, Ian: it's fucked up brain chemistry. That's all it is. It's a shitty roll of the genetic dice. We'll figure it out." Lip is so fiercely sure in the simple logic of it, that you can believe what he's saying. "Even if you got Monica's crazy, at least you still don't have to be Frank's son."

That makes you smile, just a little. Maybe you are waking up again.

\---

**v. Mickey**

When your eyes open, for the first time in three days you feel like a person. The colors are seeping back into the world around you. You notice that you're hungry for the first time in what feels like forever, and you want to move.

You sit up, which is more than you've done in awhile, and put your bare feet on the floor. It makes you shiver and raises goose bumps all over, but after three days of wishing you were dead and lost in a spiral of baseless shame and guilt, you welcome anything else. Pulling the curtain back shows the sun is just starting to fill the world with light. Already risen, but not completely. You let it fall closed again, and glance over your shoulder.

Mickey is laying there in his shorts and a t-shirt, his expression troubled and arms kept in close. You can normally watch him sleep for ages; there's something new about him in that state. You wouldn't call it innocent, the way Liam looks when he's asleep, but he's... relaxed. Now, he looked anxious.

Your hand reaches out to touch him, and he starts awake when your hand brushes his arm. "Fuck. You're awake. Fuck." He rubs his eyes, then stares at you expectantly, as though he doesn't know what to do now. He's worried and you feel like a total shithead. "Are you like... okay?" 

Yes and no. "I feel better," you answer, your voice rough from disuse. You clear your throat. "You know. Not great, but." How can you possibly explain?

Mickey, never at a loss for words (or at least any and all permutations of the word 'fuck'), replies, "Fuck. Fine, better than laying here like a fucking corpse," he reasons. You can't really disagree, but you also can't bring yourself to tell him how many times you wanted to kill yourself laying here the last three days and if you could have found the will to get out of bed you would have. His hand grasps yours, like he's trying to be gentle but has to satisfy his own anxiety that you are really and truly okay. "You fucking worried us, Ian."

"I know." _I'm sorry_ dies on your lips, because there is no apology sufficient for putting them what you've just put them through. "It's been coming." 

He looks like he wants to understand, but how could he, when even you don't? He drinks from the half empty beer bottle on the night stand, and lights a cigarette. Your hand lingers on his leg. "They all knew what was wrong," he said. "Because of your mom."

"There'd be times when she wouldn't sleep for days and just be fucking crazy, and then she couldn't get out of bed. Three days would've been a short stay for her." 

The fact that he doesn't answer you is more nerve-wracking than anything he could say. He takes a drag, and automatically gives it up when you reach for it. "And it doesn't ever get better?"

Your throat is tight with emotion, and embarrassment. You shake your head. "Not... not like getting a bloody nose gets better." You inhale and let the nicotine calm you. "But it'll happen again, yeah."

"So, what do we do, we -- Lip said something about medicine, and Fiona talked about the clinic, the hospital -- you're not going to the fucking hospital, okay? That's shit. No fucking nuthouse."

"Wouldn't be my first choice either," you say, handing the cigarette back. On your empty stomach, it's only making you feel sick. "It can be better but it doesn't go away."

"Shut up." He seizes you suddenly, hugging you tightly. "We'll do what we have to." 

Even if you're not sure you want to be hugged right at that moment, you know you want to be close to him and that'll do. Your hands grasp his t-shirt, he smells like the cigarette and his soap and sleep and the baby -- he must be helping like Svetlana asked -- and for some reason that makes your stomach hurt, in the good way. Or maybe that's hunger gnawing at you. But it fades away when he pulls you back on the mattress with him, at least for a bit.

Today is the first day of a lot of things. Outside the door will be your siblings, doctors, the world -- in here it's just him, he loves you, and it's enough.


End file.
